In many instances, passenger vehicles, such as aircraft, buses, trains, ships, and automobiles, include passenger seats with a wide assortment of portable electronic and entertainment options to encourage passengers to remain seated as much as possible during transport for safety, crew mobility, and to enable efficient cabin service. Some passenger seats may provide video and audio entertainment, including television, video games, internet access, and other on-board entertainment (“OBE”) or in-flight entertainment (“IFE”) components. Typically, these entertainment devices are mounted in the seat backs and arm rests of the passenger seats.
With the advent of portable electronic devices (“PEDs”), such as tablet computers, mobile phones, smart phones, handheld video game systems, personal digital assistants, palmtop computers, DVD players, data and audio-video media, multi-media enabled devices, and other similar electronic devices, many passengers prefer to use their own PEDs, rather than the OBE or IFE components that are mounted in the passenger seats. The rate at which PEDs, such as mobile phones, tablets, portable computers, personal digital assistants (“PDAs”), and other similar devices, have been evolving has been exponential. These devices are constantly increasing in functions and changing in size, making them more portable and at the same time able to perform more tasks. This evolution has led to passengers carrying their personal information and media on these devices with the expectation of using them while traveling.
To this point, there have been very few examples of the passenger seats that can accommodate these personal PEDs, other than providing a location on a tray table, such as a groove to hold the PED, and sometimes a power connection to charge them. However, the mounting location on the tray table takes space away from the food tray, making it more complicated to use for other activities like eating.
Other solutions to date involve attaching holders (either provided by airlines or customer-purchased) to the backs of passenger seats as an add-on device. A drawback to this solution is that most cases are not adaptable to a large range of differing sizes and shapes of PEDs (e.g., a case for a mobile phone often is not sized to accommodate a tablet or surface computer). Furthermore, because the holder is mounted on another passenger's seat (i.e. the back of the seat of the passenger in front of the passenger having the holder), as the other passenger reclines the seat or otherwise moves around, such activities may adversely impact the viewing experience of the PED held in the holder. When such cases are provided by the passengers, the passenger is able to ensure that the case will fit his or her device, but cannot be sure that the case will fit all types of passenger seats. As a result, the passenger may be forced to purchase an item that he or she may not be able to use on any other occasion. When provided by the airline, this solution creates the additional problem of having to carry on the plane a large amount of cases to provide for passengers, while also having to ensure that passengers will not take the holders with them after the flight.
As a result, there is still a need for a support for PEDs that is always available and adaptable to a wide range of PED sizes, shapes, and thicknesses, and that does not create the need for an extra case or coupling assembly. Such a solution eliminates the need for airlines to provide a large number of cases, which represents additional weight and the need for additional storage space, as well as eliminating the costs for passengers to purchase an additional case for his or her PED. Such a solution also allows passengers to use their PEDs with or without a case, and to make the tray tables available for meals, documents, or any other object, or to allow passengers to stow the tray tables while still having the PEDs securely placed for use and/or viewing.